


South of the Line

by OzQueen



Category: Atlantic City (Song), Atlantic City - Bruce Springsteen (Song)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-27
Updated: 2017-05-27
Packaged: 2018-11-05 14:32:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11015343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OzQueen/pseuds/OzQueen
Summary: Atlantic City is full of light but all she can see now is shadow.





	South of the Line

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Missy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/gifts).



> Written for Missy: thank you for your thoughts, prompts, and excellent taste in music. :)

* * *

He's drunk when he asks her to marry him, cigarette smoke glowing like a halo under the streetlights as they walk back to her place.

There's no diamond and no bended knee, and no mention of permission from her daddy, but she knows he means every word. When she says yes he picks her up and he spins her around until she's squealing for him to stop, her laughter pealing like a bell up and down the street.

When they fall into bed she clings to him and thinks giddily of him as her husband, her soul mate. She thinks about getting married in a gauzy veil, him in his best suit. And then what will follow — a house and children, dinner on the table every evening, ironing his shirts in the mornings.

He won't be on the bottom rung forever. He'll rise to the top like cream, swapping out cement-splashed boots for shiny wingtips and suits and ties. She can see it, even if nobody else can.

He's got big dark eyes and big rough hands, and his face goes softer when he smiles. She's never loved anyone the way she loves him.

"We're gonna make it, baby," he whispers, and she believes every word.

* * *

She works shifts at the diner and he works construction, building the glass houses for the suits to sit in. They've bulldozed the world flat to make room for the urban sprawl, and he's working dawn to dusk. He grumbles about it sometimes — "The world keeps on tearing itself apart and I gotta rebuild it all again" — and then he jokes that he'll never be outta work if this is the way of things, and that means they'll soon be living big, honey.

She thinks he's forgotten about the proposal, such as it was, until he comes by one night with cigarette smoke clinging to his shirt and beer on his breath, and says he's saving for a ring.

"A real bright diamond," he says. "A rock you can see your reflection in."

She laughs, and in her mind she's already showing it off to the girls at the diner. She touches her thumb to the inside of her finger and imagines a smooth band of gold there.

"A ring don't really matter," she tells him, but she's relieved when he sees through it.

He buries his face in her neck, making her squirm and giggle as he rubs his stubble over skin and sucks kisses against her pulse. "I gotta do an extra shift," he says. "Diamonds don't come cheap, you know."

* * *

She doesn't see him the next day. The bed feels cold without him, and she wishes he'd at least called, but he'd said he'd be busy and she's trying to understand. He's the hardest working man she knows and it's hard to be angry about it when he's doing it all for her.

On the second day, she goes by his apartment after her shift at the diner, but he's not there. She makes his bed and washes the dishes sitting in his sink. She waits until it's dark but he doesn't show up, so she leaves him a note to say she was there and then she locks his door behind her and goes home.

She finds him in her bed, sprawled out and sleeping. She crawls over him and kisses his warm skin, from between his shoulder blades up to the back of his neck. He smells like smoke again, but it's not cigarettes.

He grins into her pillow and pulls her under his arm, half-pinning her beneath him. "Behave yourself if you want that diamond," he says.

"Missed you last night," she whispers.

He looks at her quietly for a moment. There are dark half-moons under his eyes. "Missed you too," he says. "I'll make it up to you."

She kisses him, and he closes his eyes and keeps them that way. She runs her fingers through his hair until his breathing evens out, heavy and slow, and she watches the frown on his face gently fade away as he falls asleep.

* * *

The diamond is beautiful.

He kneels down and asks her properly, in the middle of her kitchen with the stone shining brightly against the black velvet box in his hand. She cries and says yes, of course, he didn't need to ask again, she was always going to marry him. Yes, I'm yours forever.

"Get dressed," he says, giving her a million-dollar smile. "We're headin' out to show off that rock."

She pins her blonde hair up and wears a black dress, holding the diamond in front of it and watching it flash and twinkle under the bright light in her bathroom. His pickup truck is parked down the street, and he lifts her into it, wide hands on her waist, taking a moment to tickle his fingers against her and nuzzle a kiss against her shoulder, breath hot through the material of her dress.

He's talkative. He turns the heat up and slides the vents over so they point at her, and he tells her he's got a buddy interested in buying his truck and so he's thinking about selling it.

"Don't you need it?" she asks.

"Nah." He drums his fingers on the steering wheel. "Job's changin'," he says.

Her heart jumps. "You got promoted?"

"Not exactly," he says. He gives her an easy grin. "Don't worry about it, honey. We've got a lotta luck comin' our way."

* * *

He sells his truck.

The diamond glitters on her finger and she starts to notice the way he counts out his money for bills and rent, the way he hesitates when buying cups of coffee and movie tickets when they're out together.

He's absent from her bed another night — two nights, three. The shadows under his eyes get darker.

Her parents voice their disapproval over the engagement. They never liked him — he's too rough, too big and broad and out of place; he occupies space like it's made a personal threat against him. There are calluses and blisters on his hands and he smells like lumber and cement dust.

Her daddy wonders aloud about liquidation and bankruptcy cases in the papers — a lot of those fancy new buildings are sitting unfinished and empty, sweetheart — but she tells him they're doing just fine.

They've got luck on their side.

* * *

"I don't need a big, fancy wedding," she whispers to him one night.

He's half-asleep beside her, having stumbled in after midnight, stone cold sober but sweating and shaking like he's run a marathon.

He spreads a wide hand over her ribs. "You can have whatever you want, honey."

"Just something small," she says. She's scared. She can see a line in the sand and they're toeing too close to it. "You should've told me you got fired."

His fingers twitch on her skin. "I didn't get fired," he says. "Company went bust. I can still pay the bills. Don't worry about that."

"You should've told me."

He strokes a kind hand over her skin, thumb circling against her hip. His voice is quiet. "Didn't wanna worry you," he says. "I got another job for now, okay? We'll put some money away and…" He breathes a sigh and closes his eyes. "Don't worry about it. We're gonna make it, baby."

She watches him fall asleep beside her, his arm a heavy weight over her waist.

* * *

Her girlfriends tell her she should be planning for the wedding. Dresses and venue planning, place settings and guest lists.

The wedding fills her with a sense of dread. They haven't even set a date yet. She spins the ring around on her finger and she thinks about houses with dinner on the table and freshly-ironed shirts in the closets and she wants to cry.

Sometimes he comes to her with a smile on his face. He's got money on days like that — she can feel it in his pocket, the envelope crinkling between them as they move. He picks her up and squeezes her in his big arms, carries her to bed and laughs into her skin.

She asks him about his job once, but he pretends to be asleep and doesn't answer.

She doesn't ask again.

* * *

He comes home in the early hours of a Saturday morning. She can hear him in the kitchen, scraping and rummaging for something, and she squints against the bright kitchen light as she goes to find him. He's icing his knuckles, bloody and bruised. He smells like smoke and sweat.

"What happened?" she asks, heart in her throat. She doesn't want him to tell her.

His shoulders are tense. "Just did a little favor for someone," he says quietly. "It's gonna be okay."

She goes back to bed, trembling. She slips the diamond off her finger, but the weight in her heart becomes even heavier, so she puts it back on. He climbs into bed beside her and spoons close to her, legs and hips tucking up to hers, arms holding her tight.

She can feel his breath and the heat from his body, but at the same time she's never felt so far from him. It feels like he's slipping through her fingers, fading away in front of her.

She brushes away a tear. "I want you to stop," she says. "Whatever it is, I just want it over."

His voice is soft. "I know."

She's hesitant to ask the next question. She wants to ask if he's allowed to stop. If he's allowed to step away. Instead, she says, "Can you?" like it's a choice he's got left to make.

He doesn't answer, so she rolls over to face him, to show him the tears drying on her lashes. He combs clumsy fingers through her hair. Kisses her. "Yeah," he says finally. "I just gotta take care of a couple of things, and then you and me… we're gonna get a fresh start. Sound good?"

"Yeah," she breathes. Relieved. She strokes her thumb over his jaw. Listens to the stubble rasp against her skin. "We'll make it," she says. Lays the familiar promise out in front of him. "We will."

* * *

He gives her a bus ticket, and that million-dollar smile. It hasn't faded a bit, though there are more lines at the corners of those dark eyes now.

"You go ahead and win us enough on the tables for a lobster dinner," he says, hands on her hips. "In fact, you wear that little black dress, do your hair up all nice, and the chips will hand themselves right over to you."

The air is choked with diesel fumes from the buses idling at the depot. They've got one suitcase between them and the driver has already stored it in the cargo hold.

"Why can't I wait for you?" she asks. She's terrified again. She can't remember him having so many secrets. Good intentions feel like a double-edged sword these days.

"It'll make it easier, picturin' you winning us a fortune while I tell the boss-man to shove it," he says with a grin. Then he cups her face in his hands and kisses her. "I'll meet you tonight," he promises.

"I want to go together," she says desperately, clinging to him. "Why can't you just come with me now?"

He kisses her again and lifts her up to the bottom step of the bus. "I'll follow you, darlin', I promise," he says.

She's forced to step back as the driver shuts the door. She can suddenly think of a million reasons not to go, but the bus pulls out.

She watches him until he's lost to distance and the misting rain, his hands deep in the pockets of his coat.

* * *

Atlantic City is luminous with lights and promise, but she feels sick. She keeps close to the bus terminal, checking all the new arrivals in case he's decided to come earlier than he'd said he would.

She watches the sun set, the sky turning inky blue over the flashing lights of the bars and casinos. She sits and watches the streams of people pouring in and out of the hotels and the gambling dens across the street. The women have jewels sparkling on their necks, their earlobes, their fingers. Their dresses are tight and expensive. They lean on their men, who are dressed in suits, hair gelled, gold winking on their fingers and in their smiles.

She wonders how many of them are carrying guns, or envelopes of cash. She wonders how many of them have bruised knuckles.

She can see through the glamour to the dark undercurrent and she feels sick to her stomach. She thinks about construction sites and freshly-poured cement slabs. She thinks about liquidation, work sites shut down and locked up overnight to keep everyone out in the morning. Families waiting on pay checks that won't ever come. She thinks about the men missing from their beds and the bruises they come home with.

Atlantic City is full of light but all she can see now is shadow.

She fixes the pins falling out of her hair with trembling fingers, and thinks about what she'll do if he never comes to meet her. If the last look she ever had of him was that morning, the bus driving her further and further away, leaving him in Philly alone with trouble hanging over his head.

She can hear an engine rumbling closer, gears changing. She gets to her feet, aching from waiting all day, and so full of tension. Her fingers are trembling and her heart is in her throat.

The headlights of the last bus cut through the darkness.

* * *

 


End file.
